Emmett didn't know exactly when it happened.
He couldn't place the moment everything changed. Although he desperately wished he could. He wanted to know the day, the hour, the minute that Rosalie drifted away from him like morning fog.
As if that would make it hurt any less.
He did know the moment he realized.
Days after Carlisle's old friend, Ashe, had arrived, he saw the change in his Rose.
The woman had strode in, with all her funny and loveable qualities. Her beauty that equaled Rosalie's. Her wisdom that rivalled them all. He should have known the moment Rosalie refused to be around her.
Rosalie's usual bad mood shifted into rage. She left the house more often. Her excuse was always that she needed to hunt. Out of everyone in his family, sans Carlisle, Rosalie hunted the least. She would come back, smelling pristine.
He saw it in the way she glared at their new guest. He could sense it in her silence when they lie in bed together. He could feel it in her frantic movements when they made love. He could taste it on her lips.
Something inside Rosalie was changing.
He just didn't know what it was.
Emmett remembered the moment he came to the realization.
He watched from the balcony of their room as Rosalie tried in vain to ignore Ashe. The woman just wouldn't give up. Even though Rosalie treated her coldly and would not give an inch, Ashe smiled and continued to try and make her laugh. Never once did she stop chipping at his Rose's reinforced walls.
Part of him found it funny.
Part of him found it endearing.
When the corners of Rosalie's lips twitched upward and her teeth shone in the sun, part of him was happy.
When the most beautiful sound he had ever heard echoed in the trees, all of him wanted to uproot them from the ground.
A pin drop could be heard in the Cullen home.
It was common knowledge that to hear Rosalie Hale really, genuinely laugh was to witness a blue moon.
It never happened. Not ever.
Emmett paced back and forth as his heart split in his chest. Through all their years together, he had never heard that sound. Now, this stranger comes and there it is. Rosalie was belly laughing.
He jumped out of the window.
How cruel the gods were; to make him watch his true love fall for someone else.
Emmett had to admit one thing. He knew this would happen one day. He just didn't realize how dull the knife would be, plunging into his heart.
They had talked about mates and what they would do if one of them met their's. Rosalie had claimed she would ignore it, but he hadn't believed her. He should have believed her.
Rosalie Hale was nothing if not a woman of her word.
He heard her through the trees screaming at Ashe to leave two weeks after she arrived.
When Ashe left, Emmett was almost happy. He was almost happy that he and Rose could go back to how they were before. He was almost happy that there would be no more distractions.
However, when Ashe left, she took everything she brought with her.
Her bags, her great jokes, Rosalie's smile, and Rosalie's laugh. She stole the light right out of her eyes as if it were a common light bulb. She left nothing but darkness behind.
She disappeared with them all like a thief in the night, leaving his wife drowning in what he could only describe as an ocean of nothingness.
The family tried everything to help her.
She wouldn't leave the bed. She wouldn't talk. She wouldn't hunt. She wouldn't look at him. She even flinched when he tried to touch her.
This was the moment Emmett realized something very important.
He needed to release Rosalie from her oath.
Her eyes moved for the first time in over a month and then her mouth was moving.
"What?" she said in a hoarse, raspy voice. Her black eyes were wide as if she had been caught doing something terrible.
"I'm going to find Ashe and bring her back. You deserve to be happy," Emmett said confidently.
He was determined to bring Rosalie back to life. He loved her and that meant that her happiness was more important than his pain. He didn't want her to just survive by his side. He wanted her to live. Even if that meant she was with someone new.
Because that was what true love meant to him.
Rosalie had protested, of course. She was fine, she said. She was glad Ashe left, she said. She loved him, she said. All the while, looking into his eyes but not truly seeing.
He left, his words hanging stagnant in the air.
I love you, Rosie.
Alice said she would be in Montana and he found her a week after leaving home.
She was sitting in a cave deep in the woods, unmoving. She looked like a statue. She didn't even look at him. It seemed she hadn't taken everything when she left. Her light was still drifting around his house somewhere.
He couldn't help but think she looked just like Rosalie did. He wondered how difficult it must have been to leave, knowing this would happen. He felt a kinship with her, then. They were both doing what they felt needed to be done.
"Come with me, Rose needs you."
She finally looked up at him. Looking, but not truly seeing. She shook her head adamantly.
"No, she needs you. She chose you," Ashe said, determined not to give in. Rose had made her decision. Now, she just had to respect it.
Emmett looked up at the bright blue sky and laughed hard. It was a deep laugh that echoed through the forest. Her words couldn't have been more untrue. His Rose. No, her Rose, couldn't have been more stubborn and foolish.
"There was never a decision to make."
Emmett stayed away for months after Ashe's return. He gave them space to be together without his presence. After three months, his family insisted that he was welcome to come back, but he continued to keep his distance. Because It wasn't just for them, it was for his heart.
Part of him regretted what he'd done.
Part of him regretted the years they spent together.
Part of him was still overwhelmed with betrayal.
When he finally returned, he felt he had healed for the most part. Eighty years of memories doesn't go away as easily as one would hope, but it was bearable at least.
The first time he saw them together, all of him was encompassed with happiness.
The way Rosalie smiled and joked and laughed was like nothing he thought imaginable. She was not bitter, or mean, or a bitch. She was calm and snarky, jovial even. It seemed Ashe had plucked out all of the sadness within her and burned it into nothing, leaving only light and happiness.
When they finally got married, his smile hurt his cheeks for hours.
Years later, as he sat at the banks of a river, Rosalie approached him. Her eyes were bright and her aura was calm. They sat in silence for a long time. Both of them just enjoying each other's presence as they used to.
"I never thanked you for what you did. You're much stronger than I was back then. I can't imagine what you went through," she said sincerely, eyes watering with tears that would never fall.
Ashe had come to him to say the same thing, in a much more amusing manner. He had laughed and told her the same thing he was about to tell his best friend. The person who saved him so many years ago.
Emmett took her hand in his and squeezed it tightly. The memories they shared passed through his mind. He had tried to erase them in vain. They haunted him for a long time. Each one was extremely vivid. As if they were happening right then. Each one, special.
He regretted none of them.
"I would do it over and over again, just to see you smile."